First Impressions

[Camikaze]

If you don't found a religion, you can still use the system if one is spread to you.

 

[smallfish]

One thing I really love about making a DoF now is that when you mass your forces on the borders of your friend, they won't automatically jump up and say "hey bro you trying to invade me?" because they accept that you are really friends with them.

The flipside to this is that the negative modifier "you declared war on friends" stays with you throughout the whole game.

Even after you meet civs from other continents.

I'm feeling mixed on this. On one hand, its certainly gamey as heck as the hundreds years wars. On the other, you really, really have to choose between wanting to maximize your surprise attacks or making viable long-term friendships (crucial for RAs).

 

[Slvynn]

So far i enjoy it very much.
Started my pre-first game to test few things and then quickly abandoned it and started serious run at Emperor Level, Epic speed, Small Continents, Standard, 8 CS, 11 AI map.

Picked Carthage (yeah i thing they are my fav civ in G&K) on bit sneaky, hilly continent which had some big area covered with flood plains and desert (2 rivers) just close to it... Left side Willem, Right side Adolphus. Adolphus later declared on me and Willem followed (i've made very effective REX), defended from Adoplhus, (Oh i love new combat change!) Killed with some loses Willem. Meanwhile used Desert +1 faith tile pantheon - wow that was very powerfull, and my Zaroastrism using all those flood plain tiles just skyrocketed up to Enchanced. Its late middle age, i am leading with score, continuing my expansion and about to DOW Adolphus.

Didn't saw espionage yet, but from what i've seen i think G&K is huge improvement from vanilla.

 

[JtW]

The release date where I live was at 1am today. I actually got up at 2am to start the download, and then again at 5am to get some gameplay before work.

I am hooked so far. The diplomacy and the reworked CSs are incredibly fun, a great improvement over vanilla.

I started a game with Ethiopia just to found Rastafarianism with Haile Selassie.

I haven't warred much yet, so cannot speak to the improvements in the combat system... But this is exactly what I love about GaK! There is no war and I have loads of fun anyway. Peace times in Vanilla just felt dull. Here, I am playing around with religion and geopolitics, as you actually can make lasting friendships in this game.

Religion in itself doesn't seem so grand - just a bunch of bonuses, but I enjoy the flavor it adds.

I second what someone wrote here before: GaK gives me the feeling of a story being told, which I didn't have in vanilla (which was basically a war game).

 

[GAGA Extrem]

First game: OCC Emperor. Cakewalk.
Two early game wars, then peace until the end. Rushed away tech wise and won a culture victory.

Next three games: OCC King. Nightmare.
Dogpiled by simultanious AI DOWs after 20-50 turns.
Second game: the huns brought up 3 battering rams. GG.
Third game: Rome, Inca and Maya attack simultaniously, roughly 20 units around turn 60. GG.
Fourth game: France and Japan attack with massed ranged units, could not even finish my wall. GG.

Fifth game: OCC King. Cakewalk.
No war at all. Roughly 2 era tech advantage when I won.

The difficulty is really a rollercoaster...


In addition, I don't like the fact that religion boons are unique. I had games where the AI founded 3 pantheons within 10 turns and took all the neat stuff I could have needed. Faith from huts makes the system really a luck game. :/

Oh, btw, I LOVE desert folklore. River + desert tiles + folklore = Yummy!

 

[Rick80]

Finally, I'm european and I can play with G & K, King level.
I choosed Carthago my favourite civilization of news one... religion is fun, in the begging they are a hard strugge into me and Etiopia for the religion and Selassie hated me...
But the sensation to conquest Etiopia is great, because is very hard thanks his power.
Also spionage... in the last part of the play they are a very cold war with me and Persia to influence CS
The new CS system is interesting. I think that with this expansion makes more funny the peace periodes.

 

[choaspes]

This may be a somewhat facile observation: but in my two warm up games so far I've sent out a few units on auto-explore - obviously not something you'd ever do in a serious game. If the automation was somewhat eccentric before the expansion it's positively Caligulan now! One guy wandered endlessly round and round the same CS until I had something like -40 relations, another put out to sea and spent a millenium cheerfully circumnavigating an inconsequential blob of arctic tundra, has anyone else experienced this kind of behavior?

 

[Securion]

Ok, here are my first impressions after finishing my first game;
Sweden, Large map, Continents, King level (I usually play on Deity but wanted to have it easy..)

Diplomacy: Much improved. Still lack options, but the AI now feels smarter and are not as suicidal as it used to be. Still some very weird denouncements though...
I picked Freedom and suddenly every one that have picked the same wanted to be friends. VERY NICE! I love that feature! The game feels much more realistic now and it opens up a lot more options for war, peace, trade and diplomacy intrigue.
But as i said... it really needs more options!

Religion: I decided to not invest heavily into religion in the early game, but somehow managed to found my own anyway. Found it pretty fun and it really gave me something to do, which is never wrong in this otherwise very feature poor game.
It didnt have much impact on diplomacy though, if any really. At least i didnt notice anything except Ethiopia that didnt like me for spreading my religion to their cities.

War/Combat AI: War/Combat AI is very nice. Everything feels very balanced and the AI is performing better than in any other Civ game so far. Scouting seems broken though since my auto-explore scout got stuck everywhere. That dosnt matter to me though since i 99% move my own units, but it might piss some people off.
Naval combat was also OK in my first game. The AI surrounds you now and gangs up on your units. I had a city state take out a whole fleet for me. Didnt really expect a city state to have 4 privateers... you should have seen the look on my face when i noticed it... "wtf...?!" Very cool.

Espionage: Not as good as i thought it would be, and clearly the weakest part of the expansion. Its impossible to keep relations with city states now. I focused my whole game trying to do their quests and get influence with them, but found out that as soon as i got an ally there would be a coup and i would loose it one or two turns after.
Also, not being able to send spys just for intrigue without stealing techs was a bad decision. Sometimes you just want to know what the AI is up to without stealing his techs.
Tech stealing in general really balanced out the game though, and was very beneficial for the AI. Keep that as it is.
Espionage desperately needs more options though...

The expansion is a big step in the right direction. I will definitely buy the next expansion as well.

 

[aluelkdf]

So far I like the expansion. it needs to be tweaked and balanced a little bit, but that's unavoidable with any new game. The foundation of G&K is very strong, so once a few patches come out this game will really be good. It should give all those who are still hanging onto civ 4 a reason to switch to civ5.

I like the religion and espionage mechanics much better in Civ 5 than civ 4.

I also like how combat has been overhauled. The 100hp is a great imrovement. Combat seems more balanced. Units can slug it out with eachother for several turns now due to 100hp, instead of being killed in 1 turn. With 100hp, there is not as much need to withdraw damaged units from combat to let them heal. Damaged units are much more useful than they used to be. Battles seem more "epic" now.

Also the revised tech tree makes the evolutuon of the military seem more natural and fluid. Its much more difficult to beeline straight to swordsmen or pikemen. It forces you to have a wider variety of units througgh all the eras. The military evolves naturally without huge jumps in technology (such as pikeman upgrading to riflemen).

Overall, G&K is a great improvement over vanilla.

 

[spider1]

I'm so old that I can remember when there were numerous voices insisting that the PC would die quickly, replaced by terminals connected via token ring networks to a mainframe.

Back in days, I used to connect those dumb terminals to IBM 3274 controllers via coax cable and configure the microcode for the controllers on 8" floppy disks. Remember the second prediction of death for network PCs due to "intelligent terminals"?

In any case, like a lot of folks, I'm experiencing more happiness and less money and culture in the beginning. But as the game goes on, faith and culture pick up but I have to use faith options and/or markets/trade routes and other things to get the money flowing. For the first time since I can remember, I will use a great merchant to build it's building instead of a golden age.

 

[Chronicles]

If the automation was somewhat eccentric before the expansion it's positively Caligulan now!

This had me laughing.

Played my first try out games today and I'm now playing a serious game. I notice that money before currency is hard to come by. This makes me build walls in every city because these lack maintenance. Had two wars so far and really like the improved combat system.

 

[binhthuy71]

This may be a somewhat facile observation: but in my two warm up games so far I've sent out a few units on auto-explore - obviously not something you'd ever do in a serious game. If the automation was somewhat eccentric before the expansion it's positively Caligulan now! One guy wandered endlessly round and round the same CS until I had something like -40 relations, another put out to sea and spent a millenium cheerfully circumnavigating an inconsequential blob of arctic tundra, has anyone else experienced this kind of behavior?

"Positively Caligulan," is hilariously apt for many aspects of Civ5.

Auto-explore has become a way to see how many stupid things a unit can do. Two of my favorites:

1) Scout's LOS finds a Barb camp with a Barb Archer beside it. Scout moves to a tile next to the Barb camp. Barbs welcome Scout with open weapons. Remaining Scouts observe a moment of silence for their fallen comrade.

2) Ship works its way into an ice pack. That there's nothing on an ice tile does not deter it so I can only conclude that the crew are all avid hockey players and they're looking for a place to unload the Zamboni. Nonetheless, when the ship gets all the way in it requires an order because it's unable to go back the way it came.

 

[luukdeman111]

honestly, my very first impression with the game was that the Main Menu screen is incredibly ugly compared to civ V vanilla. But after that i found the new city state system and better AI most enjoyable along with religion.

 

[Eyeoftiger]

I really like the expansion. Here are my notes, good and bad.

1. Tech tree needs to be somewhat refined as it progresses. I found myself having advanced to the modern age without having researched Steam Power yet.

2. I really enjoy the new combat system. It just seemed ridiculous that, regardless of what you were attacking in vanilla Civ 5, your unit would always take at least -1 damage (which was 10% damage) - even if your modern armor was attacking a brute. At least now the least you'll be hurt is -1%.

3. I like all the customized options of benefits when selecting a religion and whatnot; will still need to play around with this though. The "God of the Sea" bonus was incredibly powerful to me in one of my games as I had a bevy of fish, crabs and whales around my cities.

4. That being said, I didn't notice too much of what religion did outside of my bonuses. Sure, I can spread religion to other cities, but if I didn't choose a bonus that affected the number of citizens or cities, what is its use really? And what is the purpose of the "pressure" other religions have on me if, again, I don't have those particular bonuses selected? Still learning about religion in the game.

5. Don't like Espionage. I turned it off when I started my fourth game. Felt tacked on, limited options, and, ironically enough considering the limited options, unwieldy.

6. Love the new units to bridge the gap between areas. It is fantastic that archers and their likes now upgrade to their own branch of gatling guns and machine guns, essentially no longer "wasting" the ranged promotions you'd receive in the ancient areas when you were forced to upgrade these units to riflemen in Vanilla Civ 5. Very cool.

7. Also like how Iron is no longer necessary to stay alive in the classical era when playing on higher difficulty levels. With catapults and trebuchets no longer requiring Iron, it helps those civs stay alive.

8. New luxury resources are neat.

9. Lots of bugs/balancing issues though that need to be addressed. One I noticed (which I took advantage of) was that my B17 bombers for America were nearly invincible when ATTACKING mobile SAM sites. Seriously. I would bomb them, receive -1 or -2 damage, while dealing about -35 damage to the SAM. Seriously, that has to be broken. That's just nuts!

 

[DemonMaster]

Talk about an enervating game this has become.

Someone hinted to me that the Ethiopians where plotting against someone overseas
I sent a caravel towards his continent and I must say he had an impressive fleet (and I didn't). Although he invaded the Ottomans instead of me I didn't like the Ottomans so I didn't warn him

A good game that became better, much better

 

[PhilBowles]

Ok, here are my first impressions after finishing my first game;
Sweden, Large map, Continents, King level (I usually play on Deity but wanted to have it easy..)

Diplomacy: Much improved. Still lack options, but the AI now feels smarter and are not as suicidal as it used to be. Still some very weird denouncements though...
I picked Freedom and suddenly every one that have picked the same wanted to be friends. VERY NICE! I love that feature! The game feels much more realistic now and it opens up a lot more options for war, peace, trade and diplomacy intrigue.
But as i said... it really needs more options!

I had my first backstab in a long time in my last game, so that feature's still there - Isabella attacked while I was (tortuously slowly) finishing the Huns.

Religion: I decided to not invest heavily into religion in the early game, but somehow managed to found my own anyway. Found it pretty fun and it really gave me something to do, which is never wrong in this otherwise very feature poor game.
It didnt have much impact on diplomacy though, if any really. At least i didnt notice anything except Ethiopia that didnt like me for spreading my religion to their cities. :

I've noticed no diplomatic effects at all, unless Isabella's eventual attack was prompted by my sending in a missionary a long time earlier (my religion didn't catch on, and she seemed happier with Babylonian Islam) - there were no religion-related tooltips.

War/Combat AI: War/Combat AI is very nice. Everything feels very balanced and the AI is performing better than in any other Civ game so far. Scouting seems broken though since my auto-explore scout got stuck everywhere. That dosnt matter to me though since i 99% move my own units, but it might piss some people off.
Naval combat was also OK in my first game. The AI surrounds you now and gangs up on your units. I had a city state take out a whole fleet for me. Didnt really expect a city state to have 4 privateers... you should have seen the look on my face when i noticed it... "wtf...?!" Very cool.

I've found CSes very much more passive now - in past games my CS allies would attack on my behalf, or at least pick off isolated enemies near their borders. Wittenburg and Belgrade were both allied with me against the Huns (who weren't too far from Wittenburg), but neither did anything despite having available units.

One oddity about the combat AI I've noticed is that strategy hasn't been upgraded in line with changes to units in at least some case. The Huns would replace composite bowmen or horse archers (which made it extremely hard for my early-game units to get close to Atilla's Court, surrounded as it was by forests) with trebuchets, just as it would have in vanilla - but which did less damage to my melee attackers due to the changes in siege effectiveness in G&K.

Espionage: Not as good as i thought it would be, and clearly the weakest part of the expansion. Its impossible to keep relations with city states now. I focused my whole game trying to do their quests and get influence with them, but found out that as soon as i got an ally there would be a coup and i would loose it one or two turns after.

I haven't got far enough to see it in action, only just entering the Renaissance before quitting my last game due to Isabella's backstab. But it looks rather limited in options. From everything I've heard here it sounds as though coups may be too easy to successfully incite; I love the idea in principle.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I must admit after a few tries I feel that religion is quite *meh*.

It requires significant early game investments, but unless you play a religion oriented CIV, the benefits become unimportant quite quickly.
It is really nice that you can customize your benefits, but at least for my playstile "ignore and play as usual" seems to work out much better...

 

[Buccaneer]

I really like the expansion. Here are my notes, good and bad.

1. Tech tree needs to be somewhat refined as it progresses. I found myself having advanced to the modern age without having researched Steam Power yet.

One of my fears is that it will eventually become like was one of the reasons that killed Civ3, that you have to research everything before moving forward. While I understand the need to lengthen and strengthen certain lineages in the tech tree, I would want a more clear decision-making in choosing particular lines at the expense of other lines. If I have to research everything anyways, what's the point of choosing?

 

[Gratitude]

Tech stealing in general really balanced out the game though, and was very beneficial for the AI. Keep that as it is.

Completely agree. Of course I prefer to win every game I play, but I can't help but feel a little let down if I'm two tech levels ahead of everyone else by the end. Anything that helps ensure I get some evenly matched modern warfare gets my seal of approval.

Although to be honest, in my current game, I've actually fallen behind in tech and the spies are the main reason I'm still competitive. Poly crushing everyone in tech and culture, but my Celtic spies have prevented them from getting too far ahead.

Another nice feature of the spies is the LOS they give you around the city. With that I could tell that even though Poly had more advanced units, they didn't have a large army. It gave me the confidence to launch a game changing surprise attack with my superior numbers.

I've noticed no diplomatic effects at all, unless Isabella's eventual attack was prompted by my sending in a missionary a long time earlier (my religion didn't catch on, and she seemed happier with Babylonian Islam) - there were no religion-related tooltips.

They're in there, but it seems only under certain conditions. I got way ahead in the religion game and spread it all over my continent. Nobody really seemed to mind, but Spain really took to it. I got the "They have happily accepted your religion and spread it among their cities" positive modifier. And that seems to mean the AI is actually working to spread your religion on their own. I've watched as Spain worked to stamp out the competing religions of our neighbors, all in the name of the Celtic god. They took the political heat and I got all the benefits.

 

[Mustakrakish]

LoL they included Steve Jobs as GM...